As we were plotting our route south this year, Denisa saw "Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area" on the map. We weren't sure what we could see and do there, but isn't that a fun name? Who wouldn't want to see a flaming gorge? We found out that this area was given that name in 1869 by Major Powell, who used those words to first describe this 1700-foot canyon with its red rock walls. Either Denisa or Mark is in each of the canyon pictures in this blog. But they are so small and the canyon is so big, so they may be hard to find.
We pulled into the visitor center in a torrential down pour, only to see that they were already closed because of shorter hours after Labor Day. So we were on our own to find a place to camp. Mark had planned on a free disbursed camping spot, but we were afraid to park our heavy motor home in the mud. So we opted for a flat gravel spot in one of the forest service campgrounds. We pulled into our no-hook-up site at Firefighters Memorial Campground, named after the three firefighters killed in this area in the wildfire of 1977.
The next morning we headed out to see the flaming gorge. We didn't get the royal blue skies that we have grown accustomed to. It seems that forest fires in central Utah are settling into our flaming gorge here in the north.
It's hard to get a picture that really shows the size and grandeur of the scene that we were enjoying. Can you see the tiny speck in the water of the Green River far below us? That is the wave caused from a full-sized boat giving its passengers a tour of those red cliffs from the water view.
It's also hard to get a picture that really shows how sheer the 1700-foot drop off is from the canyon rim trail. You can barely see the blue spot on the top of the cliff, but that is Denisa feeling mighty small from her perch at the top.
After walking a couple miles down the Canyon Rim Trail, the smoke and haze had lifted for some clearer canyon ledge pictures on our return hike.
We spent the rest of the day driving some of the roads along The Flaming Gorge. Highways run on both sides of the canyon, and now we are on the west side at Sheep Creek Bay.
We also drove on the east side of the gorge because someone had recommended that we see Antelope Flats. We were greeted here by one antelope. We guess that if we had seen more than one, it would have been named Antelopes Flats.
Next to the water, an osprey nest is perched high over head. We didn't see any babies, but a pair of birds was at home this evening.
If it seems that this osprey has a particularly perturbed look on his face . . .
it might be because the mate was enjoying a fine fish meal, and didn't seem interested in sharing.
We finished our drive around the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area with a stop to see the Green River lit up in the evening sun. We watched as kayakers were docking here, and contemplated a way that we could take this float down another nice river. A hiking path runs beside the river, so could we use our legs to transport us back to the car after we floated down the river?
We'll have to remember that option for another time, as we will only be here long enough for one kayak trip, and we already have that one planned. We'll be back with pictures of it tomorrow, as we continue to wander God's wonders at this place that we have discovered called Flaming Gorge!
We could have skirted around the state of Wyoming on this trip, but Denisa wanted to spend at least one night in this state. So we parked at the Walmart parking lot in Rock Springs, Wyoming, for a one-night stop in Wyoming. Besides, Mark had read that we were in the middle of wild horse country. In fact, we drove out to the wild horse corrals just outside of town as soon as we arrived.
We soon recognized that the stallions were in one corral . . .
and the mares and their colts were in the other. It was fun to see that almost every mare had a matching young one following close behind. That is the problem. Wild horses are so good at reproducing that they quickly outgrow the national grasslands set aside for them. Because they have few predators, herds can double in size every 3-4 years.
We were surprised to see this map that shows the areas where wild horses roam free in ten different states in the west. Over 40,000 free-roaming horses can be found in more than 200 herd management areas. When there are too many horses for the rangeland to support, the excess are rounded up and brought into corrals like this. Then they are sold to qualifying buyers that promise to take care of them and never resell them.
Each one of them gets a freezemark--a permanent brand on their neck with a unique code so that they can be traced.
As the sun was setting at the corrals near Rock Springs, we could see that this government wild horse program is well stocked with feed for the winter for these horses.
As neat as it was to see the wild horses in a pen, we were more interested in seeing some wild horses in the wild. We were only planning to stay one night in Rock Springs, and we wanted to go to church in the morning. So that meant a very early morning wake-up in that Walmart parking lot, so we could drive the "wild horse loop" north of town. The sun was just rising as we set out in search of some wild horses.
But our first hoofed animals were a group of pronghorns. This mother and two babes were standing quite close to our gravel road this early morning.
We saw more pronghorns on the ridge highlighted by the rising sun. What a neat silhouette! But where are the horses this morning?
As we got deeper into the drive we spotted our first group of wild horses. Then another group, then another . . .
Some of them were quite far away, but the Wyoming landscape made for a good background for this scene straight out of the old west.
We wish we would have counted how many horses we found this early morning. We were having fun on our horse safari hunt.
These three were especially close to our road, and were especially photogenic.
It started to rain as we made our loop drive. We thought it was interesting that people wanting to buy a wild horse at the corrals must prove they have food and shelter of a certain size. These wild horses have absolutely no shelter out here on the prairie, and are surviving quite nicely.
We have been driving up on top of the butte as we made the wild horse loop. So it was now interesting to drive to the edge of this tall butte and look down into the valley where the main highway is. Yesterday we were driving the motor home on that tiny ribbon of a highway far below.
As we were finishing our wild horse loop, our gravel road took us through a canyon with picturesque rock walls rising around us.
The rock formations got bigger and more impressive as we got closer to the town of Green River. In fact, the rocks behind the Hampton Inn at the edge of the town were far bigger than the four story hotel.
It was an unsettled weather day, so we were glad to get off the gravel road before it rained more. We just had time to get to church, and then we headed down the road. This corner of Wyoming gets plenty of unsettling weather in the winter, as we found snow fences paralleling the road for miles.
We're gaining lots of elevation as Mark looks out over the valleys below us now.
It was like a roller coaster ride, as we just got up on top, and then we would plummet down a 9% grade. To make this coaster ride even scarier, we saw the menacing clouds and the rain falling around us.
It's about this time that we crossed the border back into Utah. We have been doing a dosey-doe around state lines lately, and our destination tonight is back into Utah.
Sure enough, those rain clouds caught up with us, and our view from that big motor home windshield was very soggy for the rest of our trip.
By this time, we had arrived to our destination of Flaming Gorge Canyon National Recreation Area. Driving along rock canyon walls with steep drop-offs into the canyon would be tricky on any day. But adding a torrential rain storm made it scary--at least for the passenger.
After a day wandering the wonder of wild horses, we've endured a wild ride to our next destination. We'll dry out tonight, and have more adventures tomorrow at the Flaming Gorge!
Bear Lake is situated in a bowl formed by the mountains that ring it, so the only way to leave is going up-hill. Our highway had increasingly tall walls on both sides, as evidenced from this picture taken through a very bug-splattered windshield.
Through that same buggy windshield Denisa takes a picture as we cross the state line into Wyoming.
We're making another roadside stop at another national monument while we're moving down the highway. This is a picture of the butte where most of the good stuff was found at Fossil Butte National Monument.
The visitor center houses a large collection of fossils that were found in the buttes in this area that was once under water. Some of the fossils are quite large, like this complete crocodile that is twice as tall as Mark.
It's amazing to see the detail of the fossils that were perfectly encased in the sandstone layers of the butte. Conditions were perfect to petrify skeletons like this snake before they disintegrated.
They have interesting specimens of all types. In the fossil below, the bigger fish died from choking on a too-big fish he was trying to eat. This unusual fossil captured both of the fish in their deadly pose.
Most of the fossils are under glass and are too fragile to handle. But they have several out in the open, and they encouraged us to touch and feel the detailed bone structure of this fish fossil.
We found that the fossils aren't this pristine when they are first found. All this detail of each tiny bone was hidden in the layers of sandstone when they came into the museum. Using a microscope and tiny tools, this ranger is removing the excess sandstone to uncover the complete fossil. A screen mounted on the wall on the right allowed us to watch his microscopic progress of uncovering the fossil he was working on.
While animals with bones are the easiest to find and preserve, these buttes also house fossils of delicate insects like a dragon fly.
Since Denisa is always taking pictures of wildflowers, it seems she should also take pictures of wildflower fossils at this stop.
It's amazing that these plant fossils can even be as big as this three-foot palm leaf, or as small as the other leaves displayed in this case.
After spending time at the visitor center, we unhitched the car from the motor home and took the scenic drive that took us deeper into the national monument. We soon found a herd of prong horns resting on the hill.
But we really wanted to see a moose. We have searched for a moose all summer, and we were thrilled when a ranger told us that they have a good-sized group that live here in the park. So we took off on foot, hiking through the hills on this blue-sky day.
Mark was doing some serious off-trailing, as we searched through the aspen groves along creeks where moose like to hide in the middle of the day.
We had walked for miles, when Mark spotted movement in an opening between the aspen trees. We could see her quite clearly with our eyes, but she is only a dark dot in the center of the picture.
We'll zoom in a little to prove that dot is the back end of a moose, before she disappeared once again into the trees. It wasn't a great sighting, but at least we can now say we've seen a moose this year.
We also saw evidence that these hills are home to something that can clean everything off a deer skeleton and just leave the bare drum sticks. We were glad not to run into that specimen on our hike today.
After spending most of the day at Fossil Butte National Monument, we were back on the highway for the rest of our drive. As we got close to Green River, Wyoming, the buttes got taller and made a pretty picture against the blue sky. That big rock wall makes the 18-wheeler driving by look mighty small.
This was a scenic drive along the highway through the southwest corner of Wyoming, where we've enjoyed another day of wandering God's wonders through the fossils and buttes in Fossil Butte National Monument.
